The Round Table The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs ISSN: 0035-8533 (Print) 1474-029X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ctrt20 Britain Returns to the Indian Ocean? David Scott To cite this article: David Scott (2018): Britain Returns to the Indian Ocean?, The Round Table, DOI: 10.1080/00358533.2018.1476096 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2018.1476096 Published online: 07 Jun 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 9 View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=ctrt20 THE ROUND TABLE https://doi.org/10.1080/00358533.2018.1476096 Britain Returns to the Indian Ocean? David Scott Independent Researcher, UK ABSTRACT KEYWORDS This article considers how far the UK is returning to an ‘East of UK; Indian Ocean; Suez’ role in the Indian Ocean. A threefold structure is taken based geopolitics; geo-economics; on past, current and future aspects of this role. The first section navy (‘past’) considers the Indian Ocean as a British Lake and the announced withdrawal from East of Suez that was announced in the early 1970s. The second section (‘present’) looks at the various bases, facilities and partnerships that the UK has around and across the Indian Ocean with Bahrain, Oman, Gulf of Aden, Somaliland, Diego Garcia (and the United States), India, Malaysia and Singapore (including the Five Power Defence Agreements), Australia and China. The third section (‘future’) considers likely post-BREXIT decisions facing the UK in the Indian Ocean with regard to its projected naval assets and political choices across the region. It finds there is some substance behind the rhetoric on a British return to the area. Introduction This article starts with some striking comments made during 2016 and 2017 about the Indian Ocean by Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. In December 2016, he announced in typically flamboyant style that ‘Britain is back East of Suez’, seeking to reverse the original withdrawal implemented in the 1970s: The flag came down; the troops came home . from the Indian Ocean . and we in the UK lost our focus on this part of the world . This policy of disengagement East of Suez was a mistake . We want to reverse that policy. (Johnson, 2016) This article seeks the substance behind such rhetoric. Johnson himself provided some substance at the Raisina Dialogue in January 2017. Britain’s maritime return was trumpeted with regard to reach and ambition: We have reach, we have just decided to restore our military presence east of Suez with a £3 bn commitment over ten years and a naval support facility in Bahrain . We have ambition. Our Strategic Defence and Security Review makes clear that the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers will be present in Asian waters . And as our naval strength increases in the next ten years, including two new aircraft carriers, we will be able to make a bigger contribution. (Johnson, 2017a) CONTACT David Scott [email protected] © 2018 The Round Table Ltd 2 D. SCOTT Diego Garcia was also reiterated in importance as a key asset; ‘in the Indian Ocean, we have a joint UK–US facility on Diego Garcia – an asset that is vital for our operations in the region’ (Johnson, 2017a). The Indian Ocean is of rising geopolitical and geo-economic significance in the twenty-first century (Bouchard and Crumplin, 2010). The geopolitics is to do with the interaction of major powers in the area; particularly the US, India and China. The geo- economics is to do with the rising volume of trade across the Indian Ocean, including energy security imperatives. Indeed, such energy flows from the Gulf were why Britain’s then first sea lord, Admiral Trevor Soar, considered that ‘the Indian Ocean is funda- mental to UK interests’ (Soar, 2012). These geo-economic considerations call for naval presence, through stationing or deployments, to safeguard sea lines of communication (SLOCs) and choke points into and out of the Indian Ocean. Past: Withdrawing from a ‘British Lake’? Geopolitically, the Indian Ocean was something of a ‘British lake’ during the nineteenth and earlier part of the twentieth centuries, under a so-called Pax Britannica that was underpinned by the Royal Navy and gunboat diplomacy (Johnson, 2004). Much of the Indian Ocean littoral was subject to British control; namely Cape Town, Natal, Tanganyika, Kenya, Somaliland, Aden, Oman, ‘British India’ (spanning present-day Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma), Malaya, Singapore and Australia. Such posses- sions gave Britain key control over the main choke points to and from the Indian Ocean. Within the Indian Ocean, key islands such as Ceylon, the Maldives, the Seychelles, Mauritius and Zanzibar were also under British control. The liquidation of the British Raj demolished much of the India-centric rationale for British strategy in the Indian Ocean, with independence gained by India (and Pakistan) in 1947, Ceylon and Burma in 1948, as well as Oman in 1951. A second wave of decolonisa- tion followed a decade later in South-East Asia (Malaya in 1957, and Singapore in 1963) and along the African littoral (Somaliland in 1960, Tanganyika in 1961, and Kenya in 1963), with the UK forced to withdraw from Aden in 1967. Various British holdings in the Indian Ocean island were also liquidated; Zanzibar in 1963, the Maldives in 1965, and Mauritius in 1968. This was followed by the announcement in January 1968 that British military forces would be withdrawn by 1971 from Malaya, Singapore and the Gulf (Dockrill, 2002). This was when the phrase ‘withdrawal from “East of Suez”’ entered the UK foreign policy lexicon. Independence for Bahrain and the Seychelles followed in 1971 and 1976, respectively. By 1975, the UK’s termination of the Simon’sTown Agreement brought an end to long-established basing facilities for the UK navy at Cape Town, and the end of UK–South African naval cooperation in the south-west quadrant of the Indian Ocean. It was no coincidence that this withdrawal from ‘East of Suez’ announced in 1971 took place at the same time as the UK government under Edward Heath had negotiated for entry into the European Communities, with entry achieved in January 1973. This set Europe as the primary focus for the UK. Admittedly, despite this withdrawal from East of Suez, a British ‘residual foot- print’ (Rogers, 2013, p. 75) was apparent in the Indian Ocean. Decolonisation remained an unfinishedprocessastheBritishflag still flewinthemiddleofthe Indian Ocean. There, in 1965, the Chagos archipelago was set up as a British THE ROUND TABLE 3 overseas territory, titled the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT); complete with the immediate agreement for leasing base facilities to the US at Diego Garcia, and questionable deportation of the indigenous Chagossian population of around 1000 (Robertson, 2012). It was significant that the Exchange of Notes on 30 December 1966 between the UK and US governments specified that the defence facilities on Diego Garcia would ‘remain available to meet the possible defense needs of the two Governments for an indefinitely long period’. UK ability to deploy into the Indian Ocean from the outside remained a feature of its ‘surge’ strategy after the base withdrawal of the 1970s. British naval units were thus deployed in some strength back into the Gulf during the Iran–Iraq war of 1980–1981, which left an ongoing operation in the shape of the Armilla patrol. Regular deploy- ments, including a carrier-led grouping in 1988, continued to be made for Five Power Defence Arrangements (5PDA) naval exercises. Significant carrier-led naval units were also deployed by the UK during the operations against Iraq in 2003. The UK also supplied frigate-level contributions to anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden from 2009 onwards, partly under the NATO Operation Ocean Shield umbrella and partly under the EU Operation Atalanta umbrella which was coordinated from UK head- quarters at Northwood. This surge capability, however, became eroded with the disappearance of UK aircraft carrier capability. HMS Invincible was decommissioned in 2005. The economic crash of 2008 generated austerity programmes that included uncomfortable naval cutbacks announced in the 2010 Defence Review. Navy personnel were cut from 35,000 to 30,000, with the surface fleet of frigates and destroyers to be reduced from 28 to 19 ships. UK aircraft carrier strength was also cut, with the decommissioning of HMS Ark Royal in 2011 and HMS Illustrious in 2014. Nevertheless, UK surge strategy is set to re-emerge with the construction of new more powerful aircraft carriers. Consequently, the 2015 Defence Review announced new power projection assets: Two new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy . transforming the Royal Navy’s ability to project our influence overseas. They will form the core of our maritime task group, with one available at all times. (UK, 2015, p. 30) The 2015 Defence Review also announced a modest increase in naval personnel, an increase in new Type 31e frigate construction, and a reiteration of the importance of keeping sea lanes open. This increase in fleet construction was reiterated in the National Shipbuilding Strategy released by the Ministry of Defence in September 2017. HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the two heavy aircraft carriers, entered service promptly in December 2017, welcomed by the first sea lord as ‘strategic instruments’ for a ‘new carrier centric era of maritime protection’ (Jones, 2017b). On board the British prime minister announced: This ship is a symbol of the United Kingdom as a great global, maritime nation . These ships will transform the UK’s ability to project power [and] give the UK a truly world class carrier strike capability for decades to come.